Hi, Substack! Obnoxiously Pitt Girl here. I don’t usually write for us - you’re more likely to find me Posting Verbally on our podcast -  but when I heard we were doing the Best Season of All Time for Schools Who Stopped Having A Football Team also known as the BSOATFSWSHAFT (can you dig it?), I knew I had to do a special edition.

The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Tigers.

Why did I choose this team?

I chose this team because it is the alma mater of both of my parents! They met there, so if you think about it, I wouldn’t exist if RIT didn’t exist! Though they attended after RIT football disbanded, they are still proud to be alumni of a school that has been undefeated in football since 1978.

History of the Team

RIT is located in Henrietta, NY, just outside Rochester, and is probably best known in the world of college athletics for its Division I ice hockey teams. The men’s team made it all the way to the Frozen Four in 2010 and won Atlantic Hockey to earn another appearance this year, though I would love not to talk about what happened after that. All other RIT sports compete in DIII (shoutout to MLAX for its back-to-back championships in 2021 and 2022), which was also the home of the now-defunct football team for most of its existence.

Sources about football’s early history at RIT are scattered, but all agree that a football program existed briefly in the late 1910s and early 1920s, then vanished. A program from the 1972 homecoming game is the best source available; it specifies that RIT football existed between 1919 and 1922, was coached by Jack Forsyth and his brother Ben (both Syracuse alumni), and went 6-14-2 over four seasons. This iteration of RIT football’s demise was attributed to “lack of a field and problems with students making it to practice from their cooperative education jobs[...]." More detail, as well as pictures of the 1921 and 1922 squads, can be found in the scan of the program page below.

After that false start, football returned to RIT in 1968 as a club team under HC Ken Davis, and in 1971, RIT’s board of trustees authorized a transition to varsity under the leadership of Tom Coughlin, who succeeded Davis in March 1970, per the Brighton-Pittsford Post. 

And yes, it’s that Tom Coughlin. RIT football produced a Super Bowl winner! Technically! Here he is in an RIT shirt, holding the Lombardi Trophy!

RIT football’s first varsity game came in November 1971. It was the last game of a 5-2-1 season and was a 29-10 loss to Brockport, featuring seven RIT turnovers—three picks and four fumbles. What a way for RIT to officially begin its NCAA career! Here is a younger Tom Coughlin from approximately this time frame. 

The Tigers competed for a full season in DII in 1972, then moved down to DIII for the rest of its existence. Coach Coughlin was at the helm until 1974 and stacked up a 16-15-2 record across both non-NCAA and NCAA competition in his four seasons as coach, after which he left to become an assistant at his alma mater, Syracuse. His successor as RIT HC, Lou Spiotti (6-20-0), remained in the position until the team was disbanded after the 1977 season. All-time, RIT football was 13-30-1 according to the NCAA, and it never had a winning season. 

This photo from the 1978 yearbook depicting the team toward the end of its run shows that RIT may never have had a great record, but they damn sure had some great uniforms:

Here’s a closeup of the helmet. Homefield, if you’re reading... this logo demands to be on a shirt. But I digress.

Why did the football team get shut down?

RIT’s last football season was in 1977, though the team was not officially discontinued by the university until early 1978. Thus began RIT’s still-unbroken undefeated streak in football. Take that, Alabama!

According to the mid-January 1978 edition of RIT News & Events, the decision to drop football was made largely as a result of a feasibility study initiated in 1974 that found that the cost of building and supporting a winning football program would not be sustainable. Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Fred Smith said, “For RIT to be competitive in football, a long-term incremental commitment of funds would be necessary. It is not fair to the staff and student athletes to expect them to continue with the limited level of support they have had in the past."

“Ah the pesky money thing again.” - Commish

The 1972 RIT Tigers

RIT’s best season was its first full season in NCAA varsity football in 1972. The 1972 Tigers just missed.500 at 4-5-0 (0-2 in conference). According to the student magazine, the Reporter, the 1971 team actually had a better record at 5-2-1, but the NCAA doesn’t count it as a full varsity season, so I won’t be either!

RIT’s 1972 campaign began inauspiciously on September 23, with a 60-13 drubbing by Geneva, NY’s Hobart College. According to the following week’s edition of the Reporter, the Statesmen ran up the score thanks to Little All American RB Don Aleksiewcz, who had a whopping 245 rushing yards, though the Tigers were able to bite back a little with two TD receptions by WR Mike D’Vanzo - one a 16-yard catch from QB Tom Honan and the other a 6-yard pitch from RB John Humphrey.

The next week didn’t go much better for RIT, with a 28-7 loss at Albany, then known as Albany State. The Tigers all but literally handed the Great Danes the victory in this one, as they turned the ball over eight times (four INTs, four fumbles. A balanced lack of offense, at least.) RIT tested a QB change in this game, swapping out veteran Tom Honan for freshman Wade Winter, but to no avail. 

RIT’s skid continued the next week against Ithaca. The Bombers ran all over RIT, gaining 403 yards on their way to a rain-soaked 30-13 victory. Ithaca sophomore RB Mark Remick led the way with 236 of those yards. However, this game wasn’t as lopsided as the score made it look - Ithaca coughed up the ball six times in the sloppy conditions, but RIT failed to capitalize on the gifts, while the Bombers scored on both of the Tigers’ turnovers.

Reporter Sports Editor Tom Bozoni wrote of the game, “Tom Coughlin’s Tigers turned in some hard-hitting and put together a few drives that demonstrated their sporadic fitness against a larger and more highly-touted squad. You don’t always have to be a winner to earn a spectator’s respect, but if a team, as a definite underdog, can play four quarters of hardball, they’re a winner in anybody’s book.”

Week Four was homecoming, and a rivalry game at that - the Reporter cites Plattsburgh State as an “arch-rival.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t a happy homecoming in Henrietta, as RIT dropped their fourth straight game, 19-14. The Tigers put up a good fight in this one - after going down 13-0, RIT battled back to 13-6 on a drive that featured a 57-yard flea-flicker from RB John Humphrey to WR Mike D’Avanzo and was capped off by a short TD rush from QB Wade Winter. The Cardinals punched back, but RIT counterpunched, and late in the fourth quarter the score was 19-14. With less than two minutes left, Plattsburgh fumbled, and Tiger LB Tom Kramer fell on the ball at the RIT 29! Alas, just two plays into the potential comeback-winning drive, Winter threw a pick, and Plattsburgh ran out the clock to seal it. 

In their fifth game of the season, RIT at last got a W, and they did it in style, 42-7 at Scranton. Fullback Jack ‘The Tank’ Romano ran up 104 yards on 20 carries, including 2 1-yard TDs, and QBs Tom Honan and Wade Winter both made runs for the end zone as well. RIT had a stout defensive performance in this game too, holding the Royals to just 63 yards rushing. 

The next game brought another win, 42-13 over Schenectady’s Siena College. The week’s edition of the Reporter included a full feature about Coach Coughlin, who credited the nascent win streak to the team having “started to play the kind of ball we’re capable of playing, error-free, ball-control football,” since the Tigers had finally stopped turning the ball over incessantly. This game featured strong performances from QB Tom Honan (13/23, 189 yds passing, 60 yards on 14 rushing attempts) and a solid receiving corps, as well as great performances from FB Jack Romano, who ran for 147 yards and 2 TDs, and DE Dave Mick, who recovered 3 Siena fumbles. 

Coughlin attributed some of the Tigers’ early-season woes to the condition of RIT’s football field, saying “It’s in ridiculous shape, [...] there’s been no attempt to work on it,” and “All our opponents have been bigger, and in the mud, size becomes the only factor. It’s pretty terrible to lose a game because of field conditions.” Still, Coughlin was cautiously optimistic about the rest of the season; though he felt that the Tigers needed to win out the rest of the season and “It’s a long road to respectability,” he also said, “The guys are starting a feeling of unity now. Success breeds success. They’ve had a taste of victory, and I don’t think they want to give it up.”

Indeed, the Tigers kept tasting victory the next week with a 35-6 win over St. John Fisher. QB Tom Honan broke his own records by going 13 of 23 for 251 yards and four TDs; 205 yards and three of the TDs were passes to split end Mike D’Avanzo, himself a record holder. This is remarkable given that the gamecap notes that the game took place in the “omnipresent rain and mud” that “hampered playing conditions” and led both teams to turn the ball over frequently, if inconsequentially, in the first half of the game. That said, RIT’s defense was more than a match for the Cardinals, as it held them to no earned first downs in the first half and just one scoring drive late in the third quarter.

Now at 3-4, RIT headed west to play Brockport (then Brockport State). Sadly, their hot streak was at an end, and the Golden Eagles bounced the Tigers 36-6. Though the game was tied 6-6 at halftime after a brief flurry of scoring just before the break, RIT turned the ball over twice in key situations and spotted Brockport two TDs in doing so, making a comeback attempt impossible. 

Though the Tigers’ hopes of a winning record had been dashed the previous week, RIT ended the 1972 season with a 14-0 win over Pace College to bring the campaign to a close at 4-5-0. Fullback Jack Romano again led the way, with 150 yards and both TDs. Over the course of the season, he amassed 776 yards on 170 attempts for a 4.5 yard per carry average, as well as a team-leading seven touchdowns. All this at just 5’8” and a hair over 200 lbs! Romano ended up being named one of the four players of the year, along with DE Dave Mick (six fumble recoveries and eight points scored over the season), C Loren Taylor, and DB Rich Knaack (two INTs). 

Here’s a picture of what I believe to be the 1972 football team; it’s labeled as both 1972 and 1973 in the eBay listing in which I found it, but I found a different one that is DEFINITELY of the 1973 team, and the jerseys were different in 1973.

Any Chance of the team returning? 

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely, though RIT club football exists and has a (somewhat inactive) presence on social media; the club’s Facebook bio states, “We are a club dedicated to bringing football back to RIT one tournament at a time.” RIT still faces many of the same structural barriers to NCAA football as it did in the 1920s and 1970s, since it is still a small private school without a football field located in western New York State, which has notoriously miserable weather and isn’t exactly a college football hotbed. Nevertheless, RIT fans can sleep easy knowing that their football team hasn’t lost a game in nearly fifty years.